Believer

Their Web site sells a year subscription for $45. I find that Amazon, or whoever their affiliate is, repeatedly sells magazine subscritions for more than the actual magazine itself.

I feel like the word "magazine" nominally cheapens the value of The Believer, for it is nothing like what I've come to know as a magazine. What do I mean?

1. There are no advertisements, at all

2. There are almost no photographs, although there are many drawings

3. The story topics are seemingly disparate, yet each tends to relate itself somehow to literature

4. The cover and pages are quality paper and binding, not some flimsy, glossy mess bound with a few staples

Without a doubt, this is my favorite periodical. Each article is stimulating in its own right, even if the topic itself is not interesting.

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Yep, pretension is the name of game here. Although it's not really pretension its a kind of uber-pretense, a pretension so pretensive in its self-mockery that it somehow doubles back itself and actually becomes almost worthwhile.

Almost.

The cutesiness of the verbal ticks (each article, for example, is prefaced with a distinctly unnecessary list of issues which will be "discussed")are so studious in their avoidance of any level of seriousness as to be nearly embarassing. The quality of writing is, as one might imagine, mixed. The book reviews are hilariously unimformative, and yet again one suspects this is done on purpose. How gauche do we readers need to be to want to find out what a book is about from a review! Or whether not the book is worth reading! How pedestrian! Pul-ease!

All in all one walks away with the distinct impression that to spend more than 5 minutes in conversation with the Believer (or the McSweeny's) crowd would be an unavoidable prelude to a grisly murder-suicide. Simultaneously brilliant and annoying, The Believer is the sort of thing that people who like this sort of thing will certain like. And even then in small doses, I suspect.

Read Best Reviews of Believer Here

If you want to read one of the most interesting, quirky, insightful and well-written magazines about books and literature being published today, this baby is for you. One of my favorite pieces in the first issue was Heidi Julavits's right-on critique of modern book reviewing. And the interviews of Susan Straight and Galen Strawson were magnificent! As for the design: first rate. So, I am now a believer...and a subscriber.

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How I love you so. The Believer is the latest periodical to begin publishing under the McSweeney's line, a line which includes work by Dave Eggers, Neal Pollack, Rick Moody, and the superfine McSweeney's itself, another journal of stupefying literary proportions. The Believer takes up the nonfiction wing of the building -book reviews, trends, music, interviews, et cetera amen -but does it like no other. These cats do it with style, approaching old subjects from different angles, new perspectives, an insouciant wit, and good old-fashioned gumption, the kind all our grampas talk about. You know.

The articles are smart, the interviews actually interesting, the divergences diverging, and with that Spartan sense of design and oh-so luscious Charles Burns illustrations, The Believer has now become the only periodical I want to make babies with.

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